At yesterday’s UN Security Council meeting on the Middle East, Ambassador to the United Nations Fawzi bin Adbulmajeed Shobokshi expressed the Kingdom’s condemnation of the assassination by Israel of Hamas leader Shaikh Ahmed Yassin. The sanctity of law and its importance in civilized societies, he said, is recognized worldwide; yet while claiming to be a state that reveres the law, Israel is in reality distinguished by its hostility towards international and humanitarian laws. The assassination of Shaikh Yassin represents one episode in a chain of terrorist practices in which the Israeli Government insists on targeting Palestinian activists, and with precedence given to force over law, there is a total disregard for the norms of justice.

Ambassador Shobokshi went on to comment on Israel’s adoption of double standards and its baseless explanations of self-defense, an interpretation of self-defense that is not in line with the findings of the International Court of Justice. The Israeli Government does not hesitate to kill Palestinians, displacing them or using famine as a weapon against them, thereby distorting the principle of self-determination and the right of a people to resist occupation and defend their sovereignty and territorial integrity.